Within the next year, U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo anticipates making about a dozen funding announcements related to semiconductor chips, including multibillion dollar announcements that have the potential to fundamentally alter U.S. chip production.

She made the initial award announcement on Monday. A $35 million grant would be given to a Hampshire-based BAE Systems plant to manufacture fighter plane chips through the “Chips for America” semiconductor manufacturing and research subsidy programme, which was approved by Congress in August 2022.

“Next year we’ll get into some of the bigger ones with leading-edge fabs,” Raimondo told reporters. “A year from now I think we will have made 10 or 12 similar announcements, some of them multi-billion dollar announcements.”

Raimondo stated that there may be more awards than 12 in a Reuters interview.

The percentage of semiconductors manufactured in the US should increase from roughly 12% to over 20%, she stated, but that is still less than 40% in 1990. Additionally, there should be at least two “leading-edge” U.S. manufacturing clusters. Furthermore, she wants the United States to “meet the military’s needs for current and mature” processors and to provide cutting-edge memory and packaging.

According to Raimondo, the United States aims to increase its production of advanced manufacturing from zero percent to roughly ten percent.

GlobalFoundries, Micron, and Intel are a few of the businesses requesting large financing from the chip programme.

According to Raimondo, the programme has received close to 150 pre-applications, complete applications, and concept ideas in addition to more than 550 expressions of interest.

She stated that a lot of companies will be disappointed because of the high level of interest.

“We have national security goals and we need to make our investments to hit those goals and we’re going to do that,” she added.

To encourage businesses to construct and expand facilities, Congress has set aside $39 billion for industrial incentives. These awards may take the form of grants, government loans, or loan guarantees.

According to the department, total award amounts will typically not exceed 35% of project capital expenditures, and direct financing awards are anticipated to fall between the range of 5% to 15% of project capital expenditures.

(Adapted from TheDailyStar.net)

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